1 I i TKANSAC'TIONS OK HoYAL SCOTTISH AUIiOUICULTUHAL SOCIETY. 



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and hares and rabbits are the principal animals. I find that grouse 

 are very apt to destroy young buds." — " You think the growth of 

 timber is seriously hampered by game in Perthshire 1 " " If it is 

 planted in large areas, not very much, but small belts are very much 

 damaged by game." — " Do you raise any natural wood 1 " " No- 

 thing but birch. There is a natural pine wood in Perthshire, the old 

 wood of Rannoch. It is a wood of considerable extent entirely of 

 Scots fir." — " Could more timber be grown on the system of its 

 being allowed to grow naturally than by plantations 1 " " You 

 require to introduce the seed somehow ; then you require to break 

 up the surface." — " You do not grow any timber by the natural 

 system 1 " " No." 



" Could you give the Committee a table of the original cost of the 

 Duke of Athole's plantations, and what they paid during the last 

 fifty or sixty years'?" " I could not tell you what they paid, but I can 

 give you an idea what the cost was."- — " Have you no record of the 

 annual value of the timber sales'?" " I have the sales books since 

 ISGO." — " Could you tell us how much per acre, roughly, over a 

 certain area it has been the last twenty years'?" "No, I could 

 not. Because the wind-blown trees in 1879 have interfered with 

 all our calculations in that respect." — " Up to 1879 you might?" 

 " We might manage the general average income, but I could hardly 

 give the income from the different plantations." — " You could not 

 show us the increased value per acre V "A great many sheep 

 runs are let from (3d. per acre up to 2s. or 3s., and at the end of 

 fifty or sixty years when we have a crop we might have larch worth 

 jE40 or .£50 an acre, so that it would be far more profitable to be 

 l^lanted than to be kept for sheep. Some people say it would inter- 

 fere with the grouse shooting, but I do not think so." 



" Is there any one kind of foreign timber more than another 

 which rivals the home-grown timber. Does foreign i)itch pine or 

 spruce run you close 1 " " We have a better quality of home 

 spruce than tlie spruce we get from the Baltic ; it is harder ; and 

 the old Scots fir wood of Glen Fishie, llannoch, and Braemar, is 

 equal to any Baltic timber." — " That is natural timber 1 " " Yes." 



" You said you would not plant larch as a tree for profit V "I 

 would not advise any proprietor to invest much money in plant- 

 ing larch on account of the disease." — " Have you reason to be- 

 lieve that the disease will be permanent 1 " " No, because I have 

 seen some years that were not so bad as others."— " Is it in Scot- 

 land a disease of such amount as to seriously damage the trees 1 " 



